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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25983742">Welcoming Committee</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/marystuart/pseuds/marystuart'>marystuart</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dog owner Steve, M/M, Sleep deprived Steve, sleep deprived tony</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 11:47:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,675</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25983742</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/marystuart/pseuds/marystuart</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>For the past few days, Steve has been waking up to what sounds like his neighbour setting off mini fires. Trying to control his temper hasn't been working, and Steve finally loses his strands of impulse control. The confrontation is not anything he would have ever imagined playing out, however. </p>
<p>tldr: Tony embarrasses himself, Steve finds it endearing.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Steve Rogers/Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>139</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Welcoming Committee</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Throwing his shield, Steve watches as the zombies in it’s path are knocked to the floor. Watching it bounce off the carriage door, he reaches his arm out to grab it back from the air. Right before his hands grasp the strap, however, he hears a quiet whine. </p>
<p>Suddenly, Steve is jerked out of his dream. Perched at the foot of his bed is Bella, vibrating with tension. Seeing the tear stains on her fur, his heart breaks and he instantly starts petting her.  He hopes the familiar motions will help her remember where she is. </p>
<p>“Whats wrong, hun?” Steve says soothingly, trying to calm the anxious dog. </p>
<p>As soon as the words slip past his lips, however, he realizes what is wrong. On the other side of his bedroom wall, which was shared with his neighbour, he hears the disturbingly familiar sound of a fire extinguisher going off. Irritated that he has now become so familiar to the sound of a fire extinguisher, and the muttered curse words of his neighbour that follows it, Steve moves Bella into his arms. </p>
<p>Looking at the time on his bedside clock, Steve groans. It has to be against the law to play around with anything that could cause fires at 4 am in the morning, Steve thinks to himself. Hearing Bella whine once again breaks his heart even more. He was finally starting to get her familiarized with him and his apartment. She was unlearning her fear of loud noises and sudden movements. He didn’t want his neighbour to revert all the progress he’s made so far.</p>
<p>Groaning into his pillow, he has to fight the urge to get up and argue with his neighbour. Not only has he grown out of his jump the gun phase (which had gotten him into more trouble than he could handle before his growth spurt), but he also didn’t want Bella to associate him with violence or angry voices.</p>
<p>Convincing himself the smarter thing to do would just be to go back to bed and try to get some more hours of sleep before his shift starts, Steve closes his eyes once again. Right before sleep manages to dig its claws into him once again, he hears a man’s voice scream “FUCK”. Groaning, he stares up at the ceiling and tries to count backwards from 100. </p>
<p>It didn’t seem to work, he could feel his heart racing faster and his skin getting hotter with every muttered profanity coming from the next door neighbour. Quickly, he heads out of his bedroom, making sure Bella was still on his bed, softly snoring away.</p>
<p>Mumbling to himself, and already regretting giving into his anger, Steve slips on some slippers and heads to his neighbours door. Knocking as politely as one can at 4 am in the morning, Steve stands there patiently waiting for his neighbour to answer the door. And continues waiting there for two minutes too long.</p>
<p>Knocking louder doesn’t seem to grab his attention either, so Steve settles on pounding the door twice and yelling “Hey!” As non confrontationally as he can make it (he still wants to be able to say he learned something from his anger management classes).</p>
<p>Hearing another muttered “fuck” that started it all, Steve finally hears the footsteps that comes along with someone walking to the door. Taking a step back, Steve takes a minute to ponder on the fact that while he is deeply familiar with the way his neighbour sounds, he has actually never seen his face. </p>
<p>Standing on the other side of the now opened door would not be what Steve had expected, if he had spent any time wondering what his neighbour looked like. Some parts of it fit the vague image he had of his neighbour. The crazed look in his eye, the grease covering his closed and the messy hair sticking up in every different direction.</p>
<p>However, there was something about him that Steve would never have predicted, let alone be able to describe. Something about his face was soft, even though he was quite clearly older. His eyes were chocolatey brown, smooth, sweet even with the crazed, hectic look in them. There was just something so incredibly kind and fragile about him, even with the harried distracted look around him.</p>
<p>“Hi,” Steve says, breaking the silence when it looked like the man in front of him wasn’t going to. He reaches out a hand to shake hands, which seems to go ignored. Maybe even unnoticed, Steve thinks to himself, seeing that the man in front of him looks like he is muttering to himself. “I’m Steve Rogers.”</p>
<p>“Okay, Steve Rogers.” The man replies, seeming to blink himself. “Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers. Who are you, and what exactly are you doing here? Firefighter? Stripper? Corporate spy? Assassin? Trained ki-“</p>
<p>Clearing his throat, Steve stops his increasingly offensive guesses. “Neighbour, actually.”</p>
<p>“Wow, the welcoming committee? I’m flattered, but what exactly are you doing greeting me at” a quick glance at his watch, “4:30 am? Isn’t it a bit early in the day for muffins and coffee?”</p>
<p>“The time is actually why I’m here. You see, the walls are pretty thin and it seems like hearing you catch something on fire has become my new alarm clock,” Steve says, trying to avoid a fight by adding a little bit of humour to his sentence. </p>
<p>“Wait, stop for a second.” At this, Steve stills, looking around trying to figure out what is going on. “I just realized I forgot to tell you my name. Or shake your hand.” In a heartbeat, his neighbour lunges for his hand hanging by his side and starts vigorously shaking it.</p>
<p>“I’m Tony!” His neighbour declares, still shaking his hand. “I’m so sorry I woke you up! I can only imagine how annoying this must be for your boyfriend. Or girlfriend.”</p>
<p>Pulling his hand away, Steve smiles awkwardly. Looking down at his bisexual pride t-shirt, he looks back up at Tony. “Single, actually. But I do have a rescue dog who has trouble sleeping through any loud noises, which is actually why I came over. I was just wondering if you-“</p>
<p>Cutting him off, Tony starts talking over him. “Keep it down, definitely. Yeah, no, it’s good. Not your rescue dog being scared, of course. I do love dogs too, I’m not a monster. But the you being single.” Seeming to stop for a breath, and quickly realizing what he said, he blinks faster. </p>
<p>“I mean, not goo that you’re single. That must be hard. Uhm, not hard. Difficult. But it’s good that you have your dog. And you care so much about it’s sleep schedule. You’re cute. I mean, that’s cute. Well, not cute but a sign of a good parent. Dog parent, I mean. Not that you wouldn’t be a good par-“</p>
<p>Sensing that this could go on for a lot longer than he would like, Steve chuckles and puts his hands on Tony’s shoulders. “This was all very flattering, Tony. Thank you. It means a lot that you think your neighbour you’ve never met would be a great parent. But, I was just wondering if you could keep it down? Maybe wait for the sun to come up before lighting anything else on fire.”</p>
<p>Smiling wryly, Tony nods. “I’ll definitely try. You see, things around me just tend to explode.”</p>
<p>“Thank you, Tony. I appreciate it.” Steve says, smiling. “I’ll see you around, I guess? I mean, if you would like.”</p>
<p>“We are neighbours, Steve.” Tony says, heart skipping a beat. “Maybe I’ll visit this apartment in the day, too.”</p>
<p>Furrowing his eyebrows, Steve looks questioningly at Tony.</p>
<p>“This is supposed to be my work apartment, you see. I’m pretty sure a corporate spy knows where I live, and has been, uh, spying on me.” There’s a pause, and “actually, maybe it’s the assassin.”</p>
<p>“I guess you didn’t pull out that list from nothing,” Steve chuckles, further confused by the conundrum that is his neighbour. </p>
<p>“Oh, you’d be surprised how many people I know that fit that list. None as handsome as you, of course. You should really look into stripping. Or fire fighting, actually.” Tony pauses for a second, and then quickly widens his eyes, realizing what he had just said. “Oh my god, I’m so sor-“</p>
<p>“It’s fine,” Steve smirks, “I can always try being a fire fighter. Just call me over one of these days, and I’ll test my skill set out on you.”</p>
<p>“Definitely,” Tony says, starting to flirt back. “You know, I read somewhere you shouldn’t limit your skill set. You should be flexible, and try out many different job fields before picking the one for you.”</p>
<p>“Of course, that makes sense. I’ll be sure to try out the last two on your list, as well. See how well that suits me.”</p>
<p>“Ha ha, very funny, Steve. Truly. I think it’s a bit early for your sense of humour actually. I guess I should, you know, head back to my thing.” Contrasting his words however, he seems to step out of his doorway and smiles up at Steve.</p>
<p>“Or, we could grab some coffee, if you’d like. Even those muffins you were talking about. I mean, we’re already up.” </p>
<p>Tony quickly grabs Steve’s arm, and starts dragging him to the general direction of the elevator. “That sounds like the smartest idea I’ve heard all week, actually. You’re a genius, has anyone told you this Steve? Have you checked your IQ?”</p>
<p>Steve coughs for a second and brings them to a stop. “As much as my ego and I love this enthusiasm, Tony, I have to go back to my apartment for my wallet. Unless, you have yours. Which considering you’re only wearing boxers and a stained Metallica t-shirt, I would guess not.”</p>
<p>Tony freezes for a second, looks down and back up. Grabbing Steve’s arm, he starts dragging them back to their apartments. “Genius, Steve. I’m telling you. Get that IQ tested. Giving me a run for my money."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Steve's dream is actually him in the Train to Busan, because who doesn't love that movie? I didn't read this over and this is the first time I've written ANYTHING in like 10 years. But y'know, we're in the middle of a pandemic so why not post something that will probably make me cringe in a couple of months from now.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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